The Senate Bailout Plan - 451 Pages And No Pork ... Not

  The Bush Administration's economic bailout bill was three pages; the House version was apparently about 100 pages; the Senate version is 451 pages.

  All on the bailout plan right? Maybe not, at least according to this story.

  Seems there's a few "earmarks" in there that don't exactly relate to the bailout. Earmarks are a polite term used by the Washington politicos for money they get for their district that doesn't help anyone else. Cost-cutters call them pork projects.

  The average American would just call it a bribe.

  Quote: Now, the Senate has loaded the bill up with so many sweeteners for representatives on both sides of the aisle that this "emergency economic rescue" legislation is now two hundred times its original length, weighs in at almost five pounds, and contains earmarks that seem, to be generous, not the most germane to the economic crisis it is purportedly being pushed to immediately address.

A few examples of those earmarks:

New tax earmarks in Bailout bill

• Film and Television Productions (Up to $15,000,000.00; Sec. 502)
• Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503)
• 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504)

  It will be interesting to see how McCain and Obama vote on this, since they are so into "change" and eliminating earmarks.